Fulham getting spanked at home by Wolves and Villa drawing at home to Palace make this not as damaging a defeat as it might have been.
21 Nov 2024
91
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Behave.
We are not competing with Brighton, Fulham, Villa etc. You’ve been doing too much cocaine.
The Everton, Palace, Bournemouth results have gone our way. Wolves running into form is not good.
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Likely 7th at the end of this round of games. (Expect Newcastle to beat West Ham and don’t expect Spurs to beat Man City.)
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With a third of the season gone, clearly we are.
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It’s not about where we are. It’s about where we are headed.
Want to take a bet on where we will finish?
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Not really, gambling is about the only vice I've never really embraced.
I don't think we'll finish in the top six, but I do think that top half is a realistic aim. We've shown that we're capable of competing with anyone on our day, we're solid defensively, and we can put away the teams that are worse than us. We have quality still to return in Danilo and Sangare, and we'll presumably strengthen up front in January. I know your default position is Eeyore but I don't think that relentless pessimism is an appropriate current mood.
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I also don't think relentless optimism is either and I think a lot of people have been getting ahead of themselves.
I’m saying I’m happy to aim to be above the likes of West Ham, Wolves, Palace, Everton, Bournemouth, Brentford. That puts us mid-table. Opta currently has us predicted as 11th. I would be fucking delighted with that. Mid table obscurity suits me fine. Not just today’s performance but last week vs Newcastle shows how much of a problem our current midfield situation is. You are right, we need Danilo and Sangare back.
I don't expect us to mix it with Brighton and Villa this season and am not tracking their results with particular interest.
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I'm not being relentlessly optimistic and finishing in the middle third will be a huge step forward, but while we're level with or above the likes of Villa and Fulham I'm going to care about their results. You can't say we're not on Fulham's level when they just got spanked at home by Wolves.
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Terrible fan.
You are supposed to have irrational misplaced expectation, and then when a manager only achieves what is objectively a success, you should campaign to get him sacked.
You are so out of touch with modern football grandad (me too, your senior, if only numerically).
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At least it doesn't matter. Obviously we'll finish below spurs (and Man City).
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Fulham really are a curate’s egg.
We’ve all been on this website for the last 25 years, right? Or was it all just a bad dream? A misplaced expectation is not snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
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Villa also drew at home to Palace, and don't even have the excuse of being a man down.
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Villa are in the Champions League, right? They are definitely suffering from too much football. Incredibly, some of their fans are moaning about Emery (to underline trick’s point).
Noticed Opta have us at 0.5% chance of relegation (0.33% for Champs League and 1.11% for the UEL, if you are an optimist). That is, unlikely to do anything noteworthy. That would be my version of no drama.
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Talking about gambling odds, which they are clearly nothing more than. I happened to catch a supersport bet advertisement. It was a bunch of people sat in a pub, watching various sports review systems, while on their phones.
When you look at it in that context, its quite clear what VAR is for: in play betting markets.
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Not just VAR but all the meaningless “stats” that are associated with football.
